04x16 - Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge

[bunniefuu]

Tonight, one of the world's

most famous landmarks.

Stonehenge is an amazing place.

These stones are enormous.

Some of the biggest ones

rise up 30 feet

and weigh an estimated 25 tons.

To this day, no one knows

how it was built or why.

Were people

really that much smarter than us

5,000 years ago?

Now, we'll explore

the top theories

surrounding this mysterious

monument.

It's everything

from a magical feat

by King Arthur's wizard, Merlin,

to a Druid venue

for human sacrifice.

Experts have found two skulls

that show evidence

of primitive surgery.

This was a place that was

specifically built for the dead.

Can modern technology

unlock its many secrets?

Now, suddenly this opens up

a whole new world of theories

which could actually be true.

What is the true purpose

of Stonehenge?

Salisbury Plain, England, 2021.

While traveling the UK,

researcher Michael Goff

visits one of the country's

most famous landmarks.

Like millions before him,

he goes to see Stonehenge,

the massive, mysterious circle

of giant stones that draws

as many as 9,000 visitors a day.

Stonehenge is like

a letter from the deep past.

It's there, it's physical,

you can't ignore it.

But what does it mean?

Goff believes

he's finally solved the mystery,

one that begins

hundreds of years ago.

The first written mention

of Stonehenge

is not until 1130

by Archdeacon Henry

of Huntington.

He describes the monument,

but he doesn't actually guess

on what it may have been for.

But soon after,

someone else does.

In 1136, a British cleric

named Geoffrey of Monmouth

shares the first

documented theory on Stonehenge

in his book "The Histories

of the Kings of Britain."

Monmouth tells of a time

in the fifth century

when the Saxons

are ravaging the land.

Treacherous Saxon leader Hengist

masterminds the betrayal

and m*rder

of more than 400 British nobles,

leaving a mass grave

in Salisbury Plain.

The high king

Ambrosius Aurelianus

asks his people to create

a monument to the dead.

But no one feels worthy

of this task,

so he was told

to ask the wizard Merlin.

According to Geoffrey

of Monmouth,

it's this legendary wizard

who brings the famous

stone circle to England.

Yes, we are talking

about that Merlin,

the famous wizard

from the Arthurian legend.

Merlin is the one

who tells Aurelianus

that in order to bless

this burial site forever,

he needs to build

a stone circle.

Merlin doesn't want

to build one from scratch,

he wants to steal

an existing one from Ireland.

Merlin says these

particular stones in Ireland

have healing properties

as well as a kind of magic

that will preserve the memory

of the dead.

According to Monmouth's book,

Aurelianus and Merlin bring

a small army to Ireland

to capture the stones.

15,000 men tried to bring

the stones from Ireland,

but they couldn't.

Legend has it that

Merlin flies through the air

to capture the stones,

then sets them up

on Salisbury Plain.

Monmouth writes that Ambrosius

is eventually buried there

along with his brother,

Uther Pendragon,

father of King Arthur.

This really seems like

a fantastical theory,

especially because we know

that Merlin and King Arthur

were fictional characters.

But this theory persists

for hundreds of years

as the explanation

of Stonehenge.

Then in the 1620s,

English architect Inigo Jones

uses new tools

to analyze the site.

So, now it's the Renaissance,

and people are less interested

in magic

and more interested in science.

King James I sends Jones

out to Stonehenge

to do a proper survey with

the modern equipment of the day.

What Jones does, is he looks

at the site from the perspective

of a builder's eye,

being an architect.

So, Jones goes out to the site

with his student, John Webb,

and he sees many similarities

in the architecture

of Stonehenge

to what we see

in Roman architecture.

And he becomes certain

that's who built it,

which means it's much older

than Monmouth's estimate

of the fourth century A.D.

And in

some ways this makes sense,

because the Romans

had conquered the British Isles

in 50 B.C.,

and just some 100 years later,

they were treating it

as a colony of Rome.

But unlike aqueducts,

and roads, and amphitheaters,

there is no obvious utility

to Stonehenge.

So, Jones and Webb study ancient

Roman architectural plans

to try to understand

what this could be for.

So, they look for any

Roman architectural plans

that might be

similar to Stonehenge.

They find two in a book

from about 30 B.C.

called "De Architectura."

One of these is called

the monopteros,

and the other is the peripteros,

and they're both Roman temples.

Jones and Webb are convinced

they know what Stonehenge is.

In 1644, the researchers

go a step further

to prove their theory.

Jones creates a draft

of a restoration

of what he thinks

the monument of Stonehenge

would have looked like

before it fell into ruins.

According to Jones' drawing,

Stonehenge was laid out

in a precise Roman form

based on four

equilateral triangles

arranged to create a hexagon

surrounded

by a circular colonnade.

Stonehenge resembles

the layout and proportions

of Vitruvius' designs,

but because it was built

without a roof or enclosure,

Jones concluded

that it was built

to worship the sky god Caelus.

Even the people of the time

were having trouble

justifying Jones' idea

that this was a Roman

construction,

because you can look

at Roman construction

and understand it

through its refinement

and its pure geometric

expression.

Contrast that against

Stonehenge's megalithic

trilithon assemblies,

even at the time,

it was understood that

this was a far-fetched idea.

Meanwhile, around the same time,

renowned English archaeologist

John Aubrey

is in the midst of his own

excavation at Stonehenge.

Aubrey makes a lot

of discoveries at this site,

and one of these

was a ring of pits,

56 of them around the outside

of the main monument,

and these are now known

as the Aubrey holes.

Curiously, these holes were dug

and filled many times over.

On a hunch, he does something

no one has ever done before.

He sketches out

the positions of the stones

and then compares them

to the stars.

He realizes something

really important,

that these stones

are placed so precisely,

that on the summer solstice,

the rising sun

appears precisely

between the two largest stones.

To Aubrey,

this can't be a coincidence.

Aubrey spends over 20 years

analyzing Stonehenge,

and publishes his findings

in 1666.

Like Jones and Webb, he agrees

that Stonehenge is a temple.

But he thinks it predates

the Roman arrival in Britain

by a great deal,

and was instead built

by the Druids.

The Druids themselves

were active in early Britain

in the third century B.C.

They're an early

mysterious group of priests

that were part

of the Celtic religion.

Druidic law forbade writing

down religious teachings,

so we don't really know

much about them today.

Greek and Roman writers,

including Julius Caesar,

judge the Druids

to be extremely knowledgeable,

especially in the fields

of mathematics,

astronomy, and science

all subjects

that would be useful

in planning and constructing

a massive stone monument

aligned to the sun.

Over the next 100 years,

additional British scholars

advance Aubrey's research,

including 18th century scientist

William Stukeley.

Stukeley really spends

a lot of time

studying the ancient writings

focusing on the Druids'

ancient religious beliefs.

It was thought that the Druids

worshipped the sun,

held very elaborate ceremonies,

and they potentially even

included human sacrifice.

If that is the case,

Stukeley proposed

that they would need a venue

for these practices,

and Stonehenge is that venue.

In fact, one stone in particular

even becomes known

as the "slaughter stone,"

because the hollows of the stone

turn red

when they fill with rainwater,

which some believe to be stains

from the blood of the victims

of human sacrifice k*lled there.

Stukeley is also

one of the first

to try to precisely

date the monument.

So, based on

the construction methods,

and the layout,

and the alignments at that time

with the summer solstice,

Stukeley believes that

it was constructed

in about 460 B.C.

And for the next 100-plus years,

this is the final word

on Stonehenge

it's a Druid monument from

somewhere around 400-500 B.C.

Case closed.

This theory is so pervasive

that many people today

still believe

it was built by the Druids

and used for their ceremonies.

But those people are wrong,

because a new scientist

is about to uncover evidence

that Stonehenge

is much, much older

than we ever believed.

For hundreds of years,

scientists and visitors

have wondered about

the true purpose of Stonehenge.

It's everything from

a magical feat

by King Arthur's wizard Merlin,

to a Roman ruin,

to a Druid venue

for human sacrifice.

These diverse theories

definitely show

that people have been interested

and curious about Stonehenge

for a very long time.

Then, in the late 1700s,

an archaeologist

named William Cunnington

proposes a new theory,

one that starts

with an accident.

In 1797, a large tremor

is felt by the villagers

in Cunnington's home town

of Wiltshire, England.

Shockingly, the cause

of this tremor is actually

some of the massive stones

at Stonehenge falling over.

The impact can be heard and felt

at least half a mile

from the site.

Sometimes known

as the Great Fall,

this is one of only three times

that stones have collapsed

at the site in modern times.

One of the stones actually

breaks as it hits the ground.

The fall of any of these stones

is really a sad occurrence,

but to lose three of the largest

stones at Stonehenge

was really quite devastating,

considering they have stood

there for thousands of years.

For Cunnington, this was not

only a tragedy,

but it was an opportunity,

because it meant that

he could start to dig

in the place where the stones

previously existed.

By 1802, Cunnington digs a pit

that's six feet deep.

And in this pit,

he uncovers animal bones,

charred wood, and antler bones

that were used for digging.

His early finds

generate excitement.

In 1804, nobleman

and fellow archaeologist

Sir Richard Colt Hoare

begins financing

Cunnington's excavations,

enabling him

to do the kind

of detailed work that he wants.

This is perhaps the first

serious and sustained attempt

to understand what Stonehenge

truly is.

Cunnington figured out

that Stonehenge

actually had two

different kinds of stone.

The large stones are what's

called sarsen, or sandstone.

And there are a set

of smaller standing stones

which are called bluestone,

which are a variety

of kinds of stone

which when wet can seem bluish.

Because there are two

different kinds of stone

in the circle, he believes

that there are probably

two different periods

of activity here,

but he can't conclude

much more than that.

For seven years, the pair

conduct many excavations

and investigations on the site,

and they discover areas

where there are burial mounds,

and in these mounds,

there are human remains.

This startling discovery

only opens up more questions.

So, like the many

who've come before him,

Cunnington feels that

without written records,

he's at a loss.

After ten years, in 1807,

Cunnington finally gives up.

Though Cunnington and

Hoare actually reach a dead-end,

they end up excavating

465 sites at Stonehenge,

and their archaeological studies

are what inspires

the next generation.

Including a researcher

named John Lubbock,

who picks up the mantle in 1862.

Lubbock comes in

and studies the excavations

of Cunnington and Hoare,

ultimately focusing

on these burial mounds.

For Lubbock, the burial mounds

are likely the key to unlock

the mystery of Stonehenge.

Lubbock spends

over three decades

investigating Stonehenge,

and eventually he makes

a surprising breakthrough.

He's able to determine that

along with the bones

and bone fragments,

there are cremated remains.

According to Lubbock,

this means Stonehenge

is much older than anyone

has ever considered.

By this time,

archaeologists had realized

that cremation hadn't been

practiced by the local Britons

since the Bronze Age,

which dates back

to about 3000 B.C.

Lubbock finds proof

that Bronze Age tools

were used to carve the stone

and then bury it

alongside the cremated

remains of the artisans.

Up until this point,

the monument is believed

to be no older

than the fifth century B.C.

Lubbock's claim places it

2,500 years older than that.

The Bronze Age is way, way,

way before the Druids,

the Romans, and the legends

of King Arthur.

There are two ways

that you can feel

about these new revelations.

First, the bad news.

I'm sorry, but yes,

we're back at square one

when it comes to theories

on Stonehenge

and what it was for.

Every previous theory

is now officially wrong.

But the good news

now, suddenly this opens up

a whole new world of theories

which could actually be true.

Unfortunately, progress

after that isn't immediate.

It's not for another 100 years

after Lubbock

that we get

our next breakthrough.

In 1961, a new research team

led by Boston University

astronomer Gerald Hawkins

descends on Stonehenge with

state-of-the-art technology.

Hawkins and his team

map out every stone

and every pit at the site,

and they also collect

astronomical data,

plotting out the stars

each day that they're there.

They punch the coordinates

of all those things onto cards

and feed them into a huge

IBM 704 mainframe computer

at Boston University.

Hawkins is shocked

to discover over 100 alignments

between the stones,

and the sun, moon, and stars.

In the 17th century,

Aubrey thought the stones

might have tracked the sun

one day a year.

Hawkins thinks

it does way more than that.

Based on these alignments,

Hawkins decides

that the monument

can track the sun and moon over

a recurring 56-day cycle,

as well as possible eclipses.

Remember when Aubrey found

those 56 small pits

in a circle around the stones?

Hawkins believes that those

once held smaller stone

or wooden markers

that would be moved

around the circle

to track the moon's phases.

Hawkins publishes his findings

in the 1965 book

"Stonehenge Decoded."

When Hawkins eventually

publishes his works,

it's a bestseller.

I mean, this book is rewriting

what we understand

from prehistory.

But in doing so, he's getting

quite a bit of backlash

from his contemporary

archaeologists at the same time.

In fact, one of Britain's

top archaeologists,

Richard Atkinson,

is scandalized by the idea.

He believes Stonehenge was built

by, quote, "howling barbarians"

who couldn't possibly have had

the sophistication

to make astronomical

calculations.

Hawkins is ridiculed until 1971,

when Oxford professor

Alexander Thom

finally backs up his theory.

Alexander Thom studies

many stone circles

throughout Britain.

He had already studied over 250.

This includes Stonehenge,

and some that are even older.

Thom decides that all

of these sites

had astronomical use,

and that 4,000 years ago,

people had this very

sophisticated knowledge

of engineering, and linking

their stone circles

with the skies.

Far from howling barbarians

or mindless savages,

Thom believes

that the creators of Stonehenge

use the huge stones

in conjunction with

the landmarks on the horizon

to mark the position where

the moon rises or sets.

Thom finds their calculations

to be incredibly precise,

close to what modern astronomers

can do with tools and technology

that would have been unthinkable

5,000 years ago.

We have computers

and the Webb Telescope.

They had antlers to dig with

and very large stones.

It's incredible.

But there are many scholars,

archaeologists who just

don't really agree.

As enigmatic and interesting

as this theory is,

it still doesn't explain

why there are so many

human remains

in and around the monument.

So, there has to be even more

to this place.

In early 1971,

Oxford engineer Alexander Thom

announces a compelling

new theory.

Like other ancient

stone circles,

Stonehenge was built to track

the movement of the heavens.

But this doesn't take

into account one critical fact.

Building this structure

is so dangerous,

it seems inevitable that workers

would die, and for a long time,

this is the primary theory

as to why human remains

are found at the site.

One of the things that

people always talk about

is just how difficult

it would have been to move

these large stones.

And we can start

with the sarsen stones,

the sandstones.

The closest place

they could be from

is Marlborough Downs,

which is over 20 miles away.

Now, to you and I,

20 miles might not sound

that far.

But these folks had no cars.

We don't think they had

wheeled carts, either,

or any large beasts

that could pull them.

And these stones weigh

an average of 25 tons.

The largest stone of all

weighs 45 tons.

That's as much

as an adult humpback whale,

and that's just one stone.

So, how did they move them?

Some believe

the ancients used wooden sleds.

Others postulated that they used

wooden rollers

made from tree trunks.

Those are just

the sarsen stones.

The other stones,

the bluestones,

there's nothing like them

anywhere remotely close

to the site.

The best estimate we have

is that these stones

come from Wales

in the Preseli Mountains,

which are 140 miles away.

We're talking a vast distance

for ancient technology.

After the haul,

the work is far from over.

At the site,

the stones have to be shaped

with very simple bronze tools,

chipping off small pieces

to taper the stones as needed.

Then, to fit the upright stones

with the lintels, the builders

had to use an intricate

tongue-and-groove system

that was used predominantly

in wood.

And then, using antler picks

and stone tools,

they had to dig out the cavity

in which the stones

could be placed

so that they would stand tall

and not fall.

Researchers estimate

that it takes

more than 10 million

combined man hours of labor

to construct the monument.

This would be

equivalent to 1,200 people

working nonstop, 24 hours a day,

for an entire year.

For almost a century,

the bodies found at Stonehenge

are believed to belong

to the dedicated workforce.

But in 2008,

British archaeologist

Michael Parker Pearson

makes an astonishing discovery

that suggests

something different.

Michael Parker Pearson

is the head

of the Stonehenge

Riverside Project,

and he goes through

and studies the human remains

found at the site.

Interestingly enough,

he discovers something

that nobody else

has realized before.

There are not just

male workers' bodies

buried on the site.

There are also women

and children.

Suddenly, we now realize

that the burials

probably aren't just

from construction accidents.

This was a place

that was specifically built

for the dead.

To figure out

how old the remains are,

Parker Pearson uses cutting-edge

radiocarbon dating.

He learns that they're not

just from one period,

but they were deposited there

in an over-500-year period.

Next, Parker Pearson

tries to figure out

who these people were.

Alongside one of the burials

is a mace that would have been

associated with a form

of nobility at the time.

Another burial mound

contained a number

of bronze and copper knives,

daggers,

and many of these

had ornamental designs.

These fine objects

actually provide the evidence

that it was the elites that

were buried here at Stonehenge.

This isn't a mass burial site,

because over the course

of about 500 years,

there are only 240 burials

that took place.

But where did

these ancient nobles come from?

While there's evidence

that people

are buried at Stonehenge,

there's no evidence that people

actually lived there full-time.

So, he looks at

the nearest settlement

to figure out

if there are more clues.

Two miles north of Stonehenge

is an area known

as Durrington Walls.

Durrington Walls contains

nearly 300 dwellings,

making it the largest village

in northern Europe at the time.

And in the middle of it,

Parker Pearson finds the remains

of a giant wooden henge

Woodhenge, if you will.

Not only do Stonehenge

and the wooden structure

look very similar,

but radiocarbon dating

indicates that it was in use

right around the same time

Stonehenge's largest stones

get installed.

Why would these two structures

be built so close together?

Parker Pearson believes

it's because

they're spiritually linked.

To him, Stonehenge

isn't just an isolated

structure.

Parker Pearson believes that

we're looking at a pairing

one in timber to represent

the transient nature of life,

and the other in stone

to mark the eternity of death.

What he's suggesting

is that Stonehenge

may represent

the final resting place

both in body and in spirit

of ancient peoples.

The two henges, wood and stone,

represent this journey

both literally and figuratively.

So, perhaps if one were near

the end of his or her life,

they would come

to the wooden henge to die,

and then be buried

at Stonehenge.

We really don't have

any way to know

if this is actually the case.

The ancient builders

have left us with a mystery

that will probably

never be solved.

In 2008, a pair

of archaeologists

are granted rights

to the first excavation

of Stonehenge's inner circle

in almost five decades.

What they find suggests

a whole new purpose

for the monument,

one that brings visitors

from all over the world.

During their digs at Stonehenge,

Geoffrey Wainwright

and Timothy Darvill

focus specifically

on the monument's bluestones.

Darvill and Wainwright find

the actual quarry

of the bluestones in Wales,

and it's a site

known as Carn Menyn.

They spend six years

surveying the area,

trying to figure out why

the ancient people would have

transported these bluestones

all the way to Stonehenge.

What's so special about them?

One thing they discover is that

the stonecutters who managed

to remove the rocks

also dug manmade springs.

To see this type

of manmade spring

in the ancient world

is extremely rare.

Darvill and Wainwright

suppose that this

is some kind

of medicinal spring,

and that the bluestones

that were brought to Stonehenge

were brought there

for healing purposes.

Some of Stonehenge's

earliest theorists

also believed in the site's

healing properties.

In 1215 A.D.,

the British poet Layamon

writes that the stones

hold magical healing power.

According to him,

the ancient people

would wash the stone,

and with the water,

quote, "bathe away

their sickness."

This sounds very much like what

Darvill and Wainwright

had found in Wales.

Perhaps these writers

from the Middle Ages

had heard some world histories

that had been passed down

for generations

that these stones

held some healing powers.

More evidence is uncovered

when they take a closer look

at the human remains.

They find an unusual

number of skeletons in the area

with signs of disease or injury.

About half of them are from

outside the vicinity.

In fact, isotope analysis

of teeth from the remains

at Stonehenge find people

had traveled

from as far away

as Germany, Italy, and France.

Experts have even found

two skulls

that show evidence

of primitive surgery.

It could very well be

that Stonehenge

was some kind of hospital.

In 2013,

another group of academics

expands on this theory.

Researchers at England's

Royal College of Art

make a strange request

to the government.

They ask for permission

to, quote, "whack the henge,"

with rounded quartz hammers.

They suspect that the stones

have special acoustic

or sonic healing properties.

The government

grants their request,

and the results

are actually pretty cool.

'Cause when struck,

each stone gives off

subtly different sounds

and reverberations.

And the circular arrangement

enhances the sound quality

and volume.

It's like you're sitting in

a sound room, for the most part.

It's as if the stones

are meant to be played.

The rocks produce

sounds that are so clear

that churches in the area

use them as bells

well into the 1700s.

One village nearby

is actually named Maenclochog,

which means "ringing stones."

But can sounds actually heal?

Many cultures think so.

Ancient Egyptians

believed that sounds

can generate vibrations

with healing abilities.

They even built structures

to amplify

the therapeutic effects

of these beneficial sounds

during religious ceremonies.

In ancient Greece

it's widely believed

that diseases can be cured

with repetitive sounds.

Sound therapy plays

a very important role

in Greek medicine.

But of course, if Stonehenge

actually was a hospital,

the sad thing is,

we only really know about

the people who d*ed there.

This makes it

incredibly difficult

to understand or determine

how successful a hospital

it actually was.

For centuries,

scholars have debated

why Stonehenge was built.

But equally as puzzling

is how it was built.

In 1968, Swiss author

Erich von Däniken

believes he has simultaneously

answered both of these

questions.

And the answer is aliens.

von Däniken claims it simply

makes no sense that

ancient people would have been

able to transport

these stones on their own

and build these structures.

And the fact that we still

can't figure out how they did it

is pretty suspicious.

It forces us

to ask the question,

were people 5,000 years ago

talented, smart enough,

and had the right ability

to build something like this?

von Däniken believes that

aliens shared their technology

with humans to move

human civilization forward

in the areas of science

and technology.

He feels they did this

at several times

in human history,

and that explains

many different monuments

and structures

all across the globe,

including the ancient

Egyptian pyramids

and the Easter Island

Moai structures.

So, in the case of Stonehenge,

the aliens helped teach

the humans about astronomy,

and then helped them move

and arrange the stones

in this particular pattern.

This idea is picked up

in a 2008 book,

"The Gods' Machines: From

Stonehenge to Crop Circles,"

by author Wun Chok Bong.

He suggests Stonehenge

had a dual purpose.

He believes that

the astronomical orientation

of the site was really

an aid for navigation

so that aliens could

figure out where to land.

According to Wun,

after a ship landed on top,

the stones could act

as conduits for electricity

pulled out of the Earth.

So, the monument is actually

a combination of landing pad

and charging station.

In 2013, an unexpected source

offers proof of UFO activity

in the area.

In June of 2013,

the British Ministry of Defense

declassifies their final

collection of UFO files

after closing the program down.

One of these files

includes several photos

sent to the ministry

that show a disc-shaped object

hovering over Stonehenge.

This is just one of many reports

of unexplained aerial phenomena

at Stonehenge.

In 2019, Philippe Rosset

is taking pictures

of the sunset in Knap Hill,

15 miles from Stonehenge,

and he spots

a bright spherical object

on the horizon.

The ball of light is then

joined by another,

and then several more.

The spheres appear to create

some sort of formation.

They've hovering

silently in the sky.

In 2020, a couple

driving in Mere, Wiltshire

observe a disc of light

hovering near Stonehenge.

Look at that thing in the sky.

Whoa.

What is it?

They capture it on video,

and just as suddenly

as the disc of light appeared,

it vanishes.

But most modern

scholars are skeptical.

At the end of the day,

is there anecdotal evidence

of UFO activity near Stonehenge?

Certainly.

But is this evidence

that aliens built Stonehenge?

Not really.

Throughout history,

people have wanted to believe

that humanity at the time

of Stonehenge's construction

were savages or barbarians,

but I think that's foolish.

Okay, physically,

they were just like us

maybe not the exact same DNA,

but similar in most respects.

So, if you're insulting them,

ultimately, you're just

insulting yourself.

With each new discovery,

there's hope that

we're one step closer

to figuring out

what Stonehenge is

and why it was built.

You think it's a cemetery,

but it also tracks

the sun's position.

How does that detail fit in?

At this point, the more

we study Stonehenge,

in some ways, the less we know.

But in 2021,

Michael Goff believes

he may have finally

solved the puzzle.

When researcher

Michael Goff is at Stonehenge,

he already knows about

the monument's alignment

with the heavens, and he thinks

that was a purposeful choice.

But while he's looking around,

he realizes there's a lot more

to it than that.

Goff starts

by studying how Stonehenge

would have looked

thousands of years ago

before any of the stones

were lost to time.

He reconstructs the entire site

and demonstrates that

the monument's outer circle

originally consisted

of 30 sarsen pillars

and the same number

of connecting lintel stones.

He also notes that

the four cardinal points

north, south, east, and west

line up with the structure.

This means sunlight

is intentionally focused

through the stones,

casting light and shadows.

This was all known before,

along with the fact

that Stonehenge tracks

the length of the year,

since the annual solstice

appears in the same spot

every time.

But Goff believes

that with one extra tool,

Stonehenge could track more

than just the time of year.

Goff figures out that if you add

some smaller markers

in the middle, Stonehenge could

tell the time of day every day,

like a sundial.

According to Goff, Stonehenge

actually had moving parts

that are now missing.

These could have been

little stones,

or maybe even pieces of wood

that have since been lost

to time.

Some small stones

have actually been found

within the monument that

could have served this purpose.

The real trick to this, however,

is that these stones or markers

would have had to have been

moved every year

to keep the clock accurate.

So, how did they know

where to move them?

Goff believed they used

a particular constellation,

the Southern Cross,

that would appear

prominently right on the horizon

in that area

thousands of years ago.

According to Goff,

every year when the Cross

was centered in the southern gap

at Stonehenge,

the people could just

move the small stones

to calibrate their clock

for the upcoming year.

Around the same time,

more evidence is uncovered

to support this,

but in a different location

and by a different team.

Archaeologist

Michael Parker Pearson

goes to Wales with a team

to excavate in the area

where the bluestones were found.

There, they find a dismantled

stone circle

made from bluestones

at a place called Waun Mawn.

Researchers start to wonder

if these Waun Mawn stones

might be related

to the stones at Stonehenge.

As they search for evidence

using modern-day

scientific techniques,

they realize that

these two circles

have the same diameter

of 360 feet across,

and both are aligned to

the midsummer solstice sunrise.

But one small clue

proves the connection

is much bigger.

There is evidence

that Waun Mawn was dismantled,

most of its stones

pulled up and removed.

But in one of the holes,

a stone chip is left behind.

A computerized model

is made of the chip,

and incredibly, that chip

fits perfectly

into one of the stones

at Stonehenge,

one that's called Stone 62.

It's like a key into a lock.

Parker Pearson concluded

that around 3000 B.C.,

most of the stone circle

at Waun Mawn was dismantled,

and the stones were carried

the some 140 miles

to Stonehenge.

But why go to such lengths

to excavate and arrange

the huge bluestones,

only to then move them

140 miles away?

Goff believes his clock theory

holds the answer.

Today, the Earth's tilt

has changed so much

that the Southern Cross

is no longer visible at all

from Stonehenge.

This slow movement

was happening back then too.

Goff believes that's precisely

the reason Stonehenge was moved.

Goff's theory

is that the ancient clock

was first installed

at Waun Mawn,

because that's where

the Southern Cross

is at the horizon,

and you can use it as a clock.

As the Southern Cross

disappeared from that location,

they moved it 140 miles away,

rebuilt it at Stonehenge

where the Southern Cross

is visible at the horizon,

and now you get another

100 years of use

out of your clock.

It's a pretty cool idea,

but you also have

to ask yourself,

scientists and archaeologists

have been studying Stonehenge

for centuries.

How could a clock

not have been discovered before?

According to Goff,

it's all because

of the number 30.

There are 30 pillars

at Stonehenge,

and therefore the clock theory

never worked

with our current

24-hour concept of time.

That's why nobody

ever figured it out.

Once you try it

with a day that's broken up

into 30 parts

so a 30-hour day

Goff's theory works perfectly.

The total length of the day

is the same.

It's just the hours

are now 48 minutes long.

But if Stonehenge is a clock,

why are human remains

buried here?

The burials of the elite

or royal people,

the clock doesn't seem

to explain those,

until you think about the fact

that maybe the timekeepers

are also the rulers

of this society.

You can imagine

that type of knowledge

would be quite powerful

at this time.

So, the leaders

would have lived, d*ed,

and be buried with the source

of their power, the clock.

Look, there's

a popular saying in science,

"correlation does not

equal causation."

Just because

your football team won

when you wore mismatched socks,

doesn't mean this is why

they won.

And unfortunately,

this applies to Goff's theory.

Just because it lines up,

doesn't mean this is why

they did it.

And just because

there are bodies,

doesn't mean it's a cemetery.

You can apply this

to pretty much every theory

about Stonehenge.

We'll never have any records

that tell us what this thing is.

These ancient builders

have left us with a mystery

that will probably

never be solved.

Recent dating of charcoal

found at Stonehenge proves

the site has been in use

since 7000 B.C., long before

the stones ever arrived.

This exciting new evidence

gives archaeologists

many more puzzles to solve.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History's Greatest Mysteries."